by Sky Winters
“Okay, looks like we’re ready to go. You ready to do this, Kat?”
Kat nodded but looked as frightened as he felt. He moved beside her and held her hand as the doctor took his place by Theresa and his wife stepped into the room, walking over to one side where a row of small clear bassinets waited to be filled with up to ten babies. They had ultrasounds that estimated them at having at least six, but sometimes babies hid behind other babies, and sometimes, one didn’t make it, something they prayed wouldn’t happen to them.
Theresa continued to coach Kat through her breathing, urging her to push periodically and then letting her relax. She looked like she was in incredible pain, and the grip she had on his hand only fortified his thoughts about that. Still, she was a trooper and kept her eyes on his face, matching the breathing sounds he was making, the ones they had learned in classes given by a local birthing coach.
“Okay, we have a crown. It’s time to push. Let’s get baby number one into this world,” Theresa said, talking her through it.
Kat clamped down on his hand even harder, grunting and gasping as she pushed on Theresa’s command. He could see the first small set of feet as she pulled a baby free and clipped a cord, handing it off to Doc’s wife.
“Boy, two-thirty-two,” she told her, turning back quickly to focus on Kat. He could see the doctor’s wife cleaning and weighing a crying baby boy, their firstborn, and placing him in one of the bassinets before returning for another. Behind them, two young girls hurried into the room and joined her.
“Sorry, Mom. We got here as soon as we could.”
“Wash your hands and get on a mask. We’re already one up and expecting five more,” she told them.
Travis marveled that it took a small army to deliver these babies, but once all was said and done, he and Kat would be left alone to care for them unless they hired help. Kat had been looking for a nanny to help until they got a little older but had been unsuccessful so far. They would have to depend on her mother and Mike to provide what assistance they could when available.
He was terrified. Here he was a big bad Alpha and he was terrified of having all these babies who would depend on him, as well as Kat. He could only hope he didn’t let them down.
His nerves were shattered as the assembly line continued until not six, but seven babies were born. Five boys and two girls. The girls who had arrived, the doctor’s daughters, helped their Mom clean up and weighed each one before diapering them and wrapping them in warm blankets with little beanies and booties. Travis wanted to hold them, to touch them, to feel that they were real, but he dared not leave Kat’s side. She was his priority.
Sweaty and exhausted, she smiled weakly in their direction as Theresa finished up with her care and congratulated both of them.
“You did it. You are the proud parents of seven healthy babies. How does it feel?”
“Terrifying,” Travis croaked, causing everyone, including Kat, to laugh.
“It’ll be fine, Dad. We’re all scared to death with our first litter. You’ll get through it without a problem.”
And they did.
A month later, a special stroller with four babies on one side and three on the other rolled down the petal-laden aisle of the lake pavilion that sat on his pack’s land, pushed along by Big Mike. The babies served as both the maids of honor and groomsmen in tiny gowns and tuxedos specially made for them by their grandmother.
Members of both packs gathered to watch as Travis and Kat were wed, cautioned to be aware there were humans among them. Bob and Vivianne sat in the front row, Vivianne looking fragile, but still fighting to stay with her love.
Travis felt like the luckiest man alive. How many men got to marry the love of their life and share it with their entire family? Even his sisters had turned up to celebrate the big day with them, dividing up the babies among themselves after the ceremony, though Kat’s mother and father had managed to snag the oldest, Thomas.
Doc’s daughter had provided the same thing they gave to every baby their father delivered: tiny beaded bracelets with their names on them. Thomas, Michael, Robert, Joshua, and Travis Junior all wore tiny blue and white beads, while Hannah and Vivianne wore pink and white ones.
Retrieving their youngest from one of the sisters, Kat and Travis made their rounds among the guests, but were soon stopped by Bob.
“We’re going to have to get going,” Bob said.
“So soon? The party is only just starting,” Travis told him.
“Yes. We have to limit our time out a bit more these days. I’ve got to take care of my girl,” he said, smiling down at his wife.
The original Vivianne stood, letting her namesake hold onto her finger with her tiny hands. Bob stood beside her, his hand around her waist holding her steady.
“She’s beautiful. I’m so glad she’ll be here to carry on my name. Thank you for that,” she said, tears in her eyes.
“I hope she can live up to the name,” Travis laughed. “Any advice for her?”
“Yes. You tell her never to go into acting and that, if she does, never work for Nathan Parker. He’s a prick.”
Travis laughed at the mention of the director who had caused her to streak to her car in a fit of rage. He leaned forward and hugged her, careful not to hurt her fragile frame. Taking baby Vivianne from Kat’s arms, he watched as she hugged her too. They had become quite close in the months that led up to this day, and despite their original thoughts on what Vivianne Demonte was about, they learned that she was never a woman you should think you understood. Her beauty ran deeper than her vanity, and her kindness was a hidden gem.
They watched her leave, walking gingerly along with her head held high as Bob maintained his steady arm around her. Travis felt a tear run down his cheek as he considered it might well be the last time they saw her, then quickly wiped it away. Once again, he was struck by how devastating it would be to lose Kat and considered how lucky he was to have her at all.
“I love you, Kat.”
“I love you too, Travis. Quit crying.”
“I’m not crying. You’re crying,” he teased.
Baby Vivianne let out a loud belch, and they both laughed, handing her off to her Uncle Mike as they made their way to the dance floor, enjoying their first dance as man and wife. Travis intended to dance with Kat forever. She was his forever, and she had given him a life beyond his wildest dreams when he’d only been expecting to get by, at best.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Vivianne
It would be another two months before Vivianne finally succumbed to the horrible disease that took her away from Bob. Rather than returning to the home they had shared in Hollywood, Bob sold it and bought a place near the lake and not far from Mike. He kept her ashes above his mantle for months before finally being able to part with her and spreading them across a favorite trail they had discovered during their time there. A place where they used to lie at night and watch the stars.
He was surprised to come home one day from a fishing trip with friends to find a statue had been erected where an old birdhouse had once been. It was a found metal sculpture of a petite woman looking up toward the stars. Like Vivianne, it was the only one of its kind. On his door was a simple note that read, “I owe her so much that I can never repay, but I know she’s still looking at the stars, and I know she always was one of the brightest ones. – Travis.”
Twenty-five years later, a young actress sat down in a chair beside the desk of a prominent late-night host for an interview.
“So, you are named for a very famous actress, I understand.”
“Yes. Vivianne Demonte.”
“Her films are classics. I suppose you were too young to have ever met her.”
“Almost. I met her when I was just a baby. Her husband, Bob, remains a close family friend.”
“And I understand that the late Vivian Demonte left behind a bit of advice for you. What was that?”
“She said I should never become an actress.”
&n
bsp; “Advice you did not heed, obviously. Was that it?”
“No. She said that if I did, I should never work for Nathan Parker.”
“Nathan Parker? He’s a pretty prominent director. Did she say why?”
“She said he was a prick,” Vivianne replied, garnering loud guffaws from the audience.
“Wasn’t your last film with Nathan Parker, though?”
“Yes.”
“And how was that then?”
“He’s a prick.”
The audience erupted into more laughter.
“Tell us about your father then. He’s quite well known for his art. Do you have any of his work displayed at your home?”
“No, not yet.”
“You can’t get your own father to make a statue for you?”
“I can’t afford him.”
There was more laughter, but the host waved them down.
“Surely your father would make you a statue without charging you for it.”
“No. He says that if he does it for one of us, then he’ll have to do it for all of us, and he just doesn’t have that kind of time on his hands.”
“Right. That brings us to an interesting topic, something not everyone may not know about you. You have twenty-three brothers and sisters. Is that right?”
“Yes.”
“That’s crazy. Your mother must have been pregnant like every year for the past two decades or so.”
“No. My mother is a very special woman. She had three sets of quintuplets and one set of octuplets.”
The audience gasped, and Vivianne smiled out at them.
“No wonder your father doesn’t have time to make you a statue,” the host joked.
“Right?” Vivianne laughed.
“Alright, well, thank you for coming, and we appreciate you stopping by to see us. Of course, we would be letting down our audience if we let you go without giving you a big send-off, so we’ve nominated our left section of the audience to stand and give you a salute.”
Vivianne smiled as the cameras split to show her on one screen and a darkened section of audience to one side of the studio. As the lights came up on them, they all stood and extended their middle finger in salute, a tradition on the show. Vivianne stood and there her hands up in excitement, and she realized he had filled the entire section with her family.
Not only were all her brothers and sisters there, but also her parents, grandparents, her Uncle Mike, and even Bob. Vivianne laughed and ran out to them.
“Ladies and gentlemen, let’s have a round of applause for Vivianne Demonte Porter and her big-ass family!
The audience roared as the show went to commercial. When they returned, Vivianne was in the audience with her family, and the host was still bewildered by the size of them.
“By the way, the Porter family will be staying with us for a while. We only had enough money to pay for their flights in, so they can’t afford hotels or flights home. If anyone wants to put them up for the night, see them after the show.”
The audience laughed and he moved on to his next guest. Once the show was over, the family gathered at the hotel where they were staying and Vivianne met up with them after signing some autographs back at the studio. They all sat down in a private room of the hotel restaurant set aside for events and enjoyed a meal together for the first time in ages.
It was good to catch up with everyone after having spent so much time on the road. Her parents looked amazing, having hardly aged in the twenty-five years since she’d been born. Of course, that wasn’t abnormal for wolves, who aged slower and lived longer than regular humans. Only Bob was beginning to show his advanced age, but Vivianne sometimes wondered how much of that was just sadness reflected outward.
“I have a message for you, Bob,” she told him as she sat down beside him.
“Yeah? From whom?”
“Nathan Parker.”
“You’re shitting me. What could that old bastard possibly have to say about me after all these years?”
“He said to tell you that you owe him two hundred dollars.”
Bob laughed and looked at her sheepishly.
“What?” she said, smiling back at him, not in on the joke.
“Well, on the day that he fired Vivianne, I was a bit upset. She sent me back to her trailer to gather her things for her while she waited in the car and I might have carved something into a prop that had been left behind.”
“Like what?”
“There may have been a sign they’d had specially printed for the movie. It was one of those wooden jobs with jagged edges like you see in parks. It was supposed to just point in a certain direction, but it had been covered to show something else. During filming, the covered part was supposed to drop after Vivianne passed it to show the real directions.”
“I have a feeling it said something much more interesting.”
“Yes. I carved ‘Nathan Parker is a prick’ on it.”
“What? I can’t believe you never told me that. No wonder it took you so long to get back to the car,” Travis chimed in.
“Well, it was childish. I only told Vivianne about it months later. She was always saying that, so I thought it was an appropriate message to leave behind.”
“I bet she was proud of you,” Travis said.
“I don’t know about that, but she was amused. She’d have loved that your Vivianne repeated it today on the talk show. You’ve done her proud by carrying on her name with such a mixture of grace and spunk.”
“I wish I could have known her. She sounds like a remarkable woman.”
“That she was.”
“Hey, what are you weirdos cackling about?” Mike asked as he moved his seat closer to them.
“Just old times.”
“Ugh. I’d prefer to forget about those.”
“Yeah, you’re lucky the Diamondbacks didn’t end you,” Kat added from across the table.
“True, but now they are my biggest customer. I just sold off those old cabins they had me holed up in last week.”
“They sold those cabins?” Travis asked, sounding alarmed.
“Yeah. They are moving their entire pack further north and selling off all their property.”
“Who did they sell the cabin land to?” Travis persisted.
“Some developer who wants to expand the lake and make a retreat of some sort on it.”
“Mike, do you remember the night we pulled you out of that cabin?”
“Not really, and what I do remember, I’ve tried to forget. It’s not exactly a time in my life that I’m proud of.”
Travis shook his head. This was no place to discuss it further. Instead, he excused himself and went out to the hallway. Vivianne slipped out behind him, lurking down the hallway a bit to listen in. She had always been in tune with her father and knew something was bothering him.
She listened as he talked to someone on the other end of the phone in hushed tones, only able to pick up bits and pieces of the conversation. When he ended the call, she stepped out of the shadows to face him.
“What’s going on, Dad?”
“Nothing for you to worry about, sweetheart.”
“I heard you saying something about cars in the lake. Why are there cars in the lake, and what does it have to do with you?”
“Like I said, Vivianne, it’s better that you don’t know.”
“This family is the most important thing in the world to me, and if there is something that will affect one of us, then it affects all of us.”
“Fine. Back before your Uncle Mike became a real estate agent, he had a few problems. The Diamondbacks kidnapped him, and my pack had to go in and get him back. It got ugly, and some bears ended up at the bottom of that lake in their SUVs. They’ve been there a long time, and no one has ever thought twice about them.”
“Jesus, Dad.”
“They were bad seeds, and the Diamondbacks weren’t even upset that they were gone. It was them or Mike, and possibly your mother and grandparents. As long as
the Diamondbacks owned that property, we never needed to worry about them, but now people will be working to clean the place up and get it ready for a resort. The lake is deep, but not that deep. They’ll find those vehicles, and it could be bad for a lot of people, including your Uncle Mike and me.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. I’ve called some members of the pack who were there to discuss it.”
“We can handle it, Dad.”
“What do you mean, ‘we?’”
“Us. The family. We’ll deal with it together.”
“No. This has nothing to do with you kids, and you have no need to be involved.”
“Too late. It’s done,” Vivianne replied, walking away.
The following day, Mike received a phone call saying that the deal was off and another buyer would be purchasing the property. He was surprised when he turned up for the signing and found Vivianne seated at the table with her lawyer.
“What’s going on here?” he asked.
“I’m buying myself a resort. Just call it a family business,” she replied.
Several days later, under the cover of night, two SUVs were pulled from the lake and placed in what appeared to be a covered racing trailer. Where they were taken was unclear, but Viviane Demonte Porter assured her father that they’d never be seen again, along with their contents.
He was surprised that she had taken charge and was now employing half of their family to run a resort, but why it surprised him was unclear. She was simply living up to her namesake.
“Thank you for what you’ve done, Vivianne, though I’m not sure why you’ve done it.”
“Simple, Dad. You and Mom worked hard to build this family, and I’ve been busy off on my own trying to make a name for myself. What I’ve realized is that it’s great that everyone knows my name, but I’ve missed my family. I’m not about to give up my career, but this resort gives me a reason to come home and work side by side with my siblings.”
“And you decided to do that just because you heard I put some bodies in a lake, so it seemed like a great idea to buy it and start a family business?”
